Penny Arcade Announces Official 'Dungeons & Dragons' Manual

Penny Arcade has announced a new Dungeons & Dragons manual that will let players add their very own Acquisitions Incorporated guild to their games.

Back in 2008, Penny Arcade released Acquisitions Incorporated, one of the first liveplay podcasts about Dungeons & Dragons. The podcast started as a way to market D&D's Fourth Edition set of rules, but eventually morphed into its own brand with sold out live shows, a spinoff, and even an appearance in the Neverwinter MMO.

Now, Penny Arcade is releasing an officially licensed Acquisitions Incorporated Dungeon Manual. The new publication will allow players to franchise their very own branch of Acquisitions Incorporated for use in their own game. Details are a bit scarce about what the new book will contain, but GeekWire noted that it will contain new "character positions" presumably related to their rank within Acquisitions Incorporated.

Notably, Acquisitions Incorporated is billed as an "official" third-party book for Dungeons & Dragons. While plenty of publishers have released third-party supplements for D&D, this will be one of the first non-Wizards of the Coast or TSR books to use the Dungeons & Dragons branding. Most third party supplements refer to D&D as the "oldest tabletop roleplaying game" or the "greatest tabletop roleplaying game" as they can't legally use the game's name and certain intellectual property owned by Wizards of the Coast. According to Penny Arcade, this allowed the company to publish the Manual without using Kickstarter.

While unexpected, Acquisitions Incorporated and Dungeons & Dragons have been close for years. Both companies are based out of Seattle, and Acquisitions Incorporated has had a DM from the D&D team since the beginning. Chris Perkins, D&D's lead story designer, was Acquisitions Incorporated's first DM, and Perkins recently relinquished the DM's chair to Jeremy Crawford, one of D&D's lead rules designers. Game designer Kate Welch is also part of Acquisitions Incorporated's weekly spinoff show.

No specific release date was given for Acquisitions Incorporated Dungeon Manual, but GeekWire noted that it would come out in hobby and bookstores sometime in summer 2019.